


Whiskey and Charcoal

by holyfant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Harry's Birthday, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and some other supporting characters are there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 09:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15860664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: So there he was, celebrating a birthday that he honestly hadn't ever expected to reach.





	Whiskey and Charcoal

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am very, very one-trick pony these days: once again, this is a chapter from that mystical larger WIP that got cut in an editing round. It's certainly a little fragmentary because of that, but it's nice to just get some content out there now and then... I promise you the actual full story itself does in fact exist, and I am in fact still working on it. It's been three years! But it's not dead yet. Not beta'd; feel free to point out errors.

“I think I'd rather just have it be the three of us,” Harry confessed, as they were putting on their shoes in the flat hallway.

 

Ron, leaning against the wall to pull the much-abused heels of his sneakers on, looked up at him with an expression that could almost be described as panicked. “What, are you serious?”

 

His face made Harry feel embarrassed. “I'm tired, okay,” he said, snappish.

 

“We can't cancel now.” Ron straightened. “We had to be there twenty minutes ago, and everything's – well, done. They're waiting for us.”

 

Harry didn't say: _that's the problem_. “I know, I know.”

 

“It's your birthday, mate,” Ron said, encouragingly. “It's not just any old day. Mum's cooking all your favourites, and after – we thought, Hermione and me, that we could come back here and go out, if you want. See a bit of the town.”

 

Harry rolled his shoulders, and said nothing.

 

“Or not,” Ron said, his voice just slightly too careful. “But we really have to leave now, yeah?”

 

“Okay.”

 

Ron looked at him. “All right?”

 

“Yes,” Harry said, and made himself smile. “I'm just glad it's just your family.”

 

“Fucking hell, mate,” Ron said, and suddenly he looked distinctly miserable.

 

Harry blinked. “What?”

 

-

 

It was Hermione who opened the Burrow's front door when Ron rang the bell. Her wide smile faltered a little when she looked them over. “Erm,” she said.

 

“Yeah, sorry,” Ron said. “I had to tell him, all right, he was – going on about how glad he was it was just going to be us and my parents.”

 

“Oh, Harry,” she said, stricken.

 

“Oh, for – Hermione, don't, it's _fine_ ,” Harry said, and then, aware of the sharpness of his tone, he tried to soften it: “Hey.” He stepped forward to hug her and let himself be kissed, one peck on each cheek.

 

She withdrew, looking sad. “Happy birthday,” she said in a small voice. “It's – not a _whole_ lot of people, if that helps.”

 

“It's fine,” he repeated. “Seriously. It'll be nice. I'll even pretend to be surprised.” He didn't miss the look they exchanged, but elected to ignore it.

 

Harry pushed through to the Burrow's living room, and managed to fake what he hoped was a passable reaction to the loud chorus of “Surprise!” that welcomed him in. He got a look at a small table with presents and some of his friends wearing party hats – Neville, Seamus, Dean, Luna, Ginny, Hagrid huge as ever in a corner, and – he felt himself beginning to smile in spite of himself –  Andromeda on a chair, Teddy sat on her lap. Mrs. Weasley swooped in to hug him.

 

“Mrs. Weasley, you shouldn't have,” he told her when she'd released him.

 

“Oh, Harry, of course we did!” she said, giving his shoulder another squeeze. “Life is too short not to take every opportunity to celebrate.”

 

He looked down into her face; she was smiling, but there were shadows underneath. “Yes,” he said, and very suddenly tears tickled the back of his throat. “You're right.”

 

He shook hands with Mr. Weasley, Percy and George, and received Luna's hug and his former dorm mates' shoulder pats and handshakes. Andromeda came up with Teddy on her hip and held him up for Harry to kiss. Ginny gave him a quick peck on the cheek and withdrew from him before he could say anything. Hagrid, last in line, pulled him into a bone-cracking hug that lifted him off his feet.

 

“Missed yeh, Harry,” he said gruffly when he'd put Harry back down.

 

Harry's throat tightened further, and on impulse he pressed back into Hagrid, throwing his arms around his massive chest. “I've missed you too, Hagrid – I'm sorry I haven't been writing –”

 

Hagrid patted his shoulders heavily. “That's all righ', I know yeh're busy.”

 

“Yeah, busy,” Harry said, almost laughing at the idea. “I'm not busy, I haven't been doing _anything_.”

 

“Nonsense,” Hagrid said, “Yeh've been recovering.”

 

Harry looked up at him, his bearded, kind face. He felt something crack slightly: the thin veneer of normality under which he functioned. For a moment he was afraid he was going to cry.

 

“Well,” Mrs. Weasley said, with impeccable timing. “Now that we're all here, it's time for cake!”

 

-

 

After cake and wine or beer for everyone, the mood turned quite joyous. Mr. Weasley fiddled with the Wireless until it played a Circe and the Pigs concert – Luna and Ginny danced and turned together to the music, and kept trying to convince Neville to join in, until finally he knocked back his goblet of wine, loosened his collar and stepped up to twirl them each in turn. Hermione sat chatting with Hagrid, filling up his tankard of beer regularly. Ron and Seamus loudly discussed the latest developments in the European Quidditch Cup – “Yes,” Harry heard Ron excitedly say, “but you shouldn't discount Finland, they've got a new Beater and he's _amazing –”_

 

Harry watched them all at it, still worrying away at the knot of emotion in his throat: simultaneously bursting with affection for all of them, and feeling distinctly removed from them.

 

He was shaken out of his reverie when Dean sidled over to him. “Hey, Harry,” he said, smiling, and held out a beer bottle. Harry took it. “Happy birthday, man.”

 

“Cheers.” They touched bottles.

 

“Here's to making everyone who ever bet that you'd be dead before you turned eighteen lose their money,” Dean said lightly, and took a swig.

 

Harry huffed a laugh. “Well, making people lose their bets has always been one of my largest motivations in life.”

 

“It sure was in fourth year!” Dean's smile faded as he gave Harry a subtle one-over. “Hey, we tried to owl you and Ron a few times, but the letters came back.” He waited for a response. “Doing all right?”

 

Harry licked beer foam off his upper lip. He wondered if Ron had told Dean anything. “Yes, well. You know.”

 

He avoided Dean's blank look by watching Ron and Hermione across the room, who were now talking privately in a corner with their heads close together. He looked away when Hermione laughed and leaned up to give Ron a kiss. “We're under a sort of – tightly regulated owl post system.”

 

Dean frowned. “Why? Hate mail?”

 

“Well, the system's there to stop it from getting through,” Harry said, “so we haven't been getting any, really. At least not the really nasty kind with curses attached.” He smiled briefly. “But I'll give you the address if you've got a quill somewhere. There's a charm – if we give the address out ourselves the wards will let you through.”

 

Dean patted his pockets, and finally produced a bit of paper and a Muggle pencil. There was a half-finished sketch on it of what was clearly Seamus; Dean quickly turned it round so Harry only saw the other side, blank. Harry scribbled the flat's address on it and gave it back.

 

“Ta,” Dean said, putting the scrap back in his pocket. “All right if I write, then?”

 

“No, I gave you our address so you absolutely wouldn't write and if you did, we'd burn your letters,” Harry said, deadpan.

 

Dean chuckled. Seamus came over to them and hooked his arm around Dean's shoulder. “Harry,” he said happily, and gave Harry a bright smile. “Deano, Ron and I got cracking on that whiskey, you two should definitely join in.”

 

“That whiskey is Harry's birthday present, you lug,” Dean said.

 

“I know! That's why I'm inviting him to come drink it!”

 

Harry grinned. “Thanks, but I'm fine, Seamus.”

 

“I assume that means we'll have to leave some for you, it being your present,” Seamus said.

 

“You'd better,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

 

“And you should probably remind Ron that his mum's around,” Harry said, smiling.

 

Seamus gave Harry a grin, smacked a kiss onto Dean's cheek, and sauntered away.

 

Dean seemed embarrassed. “Sorry about that.”

 

“That's all right.” He looked away, aware that he had caught something Dean hadn't quite wanted him to see.

 

There was an awkward silence. “So are you doing okay, apart from – security, and all that? 'Cause no offense, Harry, but you look like death.” Dean didn't look at Harry as he said this, instead looking across the room, tipping his bottle against his mouth.

 

“Thanks, that was exactly the look I was going for,” Harry said.

 

Dean smiled faintly, but then looked at him questioningly. “I never got the chance to ask you what it was like, back at Hogwarts.”

 

Harry tried to ignore this for a moment, then found he couldn't. “Well,” he said, “I've had better times in my life.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean said, nodding sympathetically. “You know, Seamus and I – we were up in the Astronomy Tower, helping people get out of the rubble, because it was collapsing, when that message came, about you. Voldemort in everyone's heads. I remember thinking: if I see Harry on his way to give himself up, I'll – punch him out and hide him in a broom closet somewhere. 'Cause I knew you were going to do it, I just knew. I would have done it, too, if I'd run into you. I could hear Ginny… 'cause she was there too, helping… she was shouting down the stairs, _where is he, where is he_ , but nobody'd seen you for hours. And I was looking out one of the windows, and I could see this person walking across to the Forest, and – no idea why, I was so high up, but it'd gone so quiet outside, and there was no one else out there as far as I could tell, and I was just – so _sure_ it was you. Was it, you think?”

 

Dean looked at him, earnest. Too late, Harry became aware of the tightness of his beer bottle in his hand, the surge of an energy that he hadn't meant to send – the bottle shattered between his fingers, showering Dean and himself with glass and beer.

 

“Fuck, Harry, are you all right?” Dean said, reeling back in surprise. “What –”

 

“I,” Harry said, or tried to: his throat felt dry and furry with the panic that was climbing up into his mouth. “I have to,” he said, and shouldered past Dean, who grabbed his arm.

 

“It's all right, I'll Vanish it –”

 

“No,” Harry said, too harshly, and pulled himself loose, “I – get some air, outside –” He fled.

 

In the kitchen, he met Hermione who was fetching drinks for herself and Hagrid – “Oh, Harry, you –” She noticed his expression. “ _What's wrong_?” But he couldn't, didn't acknowledge her and ducked through the door to the porch, where he stumbled down the three wooden steps and half-ran, half-walked away from the house until he was on the grass leading towards the orchard. There he dropped himself on his haunches and ducked his head, pressing his eyes closed against the sudden, unexpected tilting of the world; the churning of the black sky, the lawn unsteady and unreliable under him. He was panting, though being outside didn't help – the July air was as oppressive now as it had been balmy before.

 

“Shit,” he muttered, “shit, shit,” and he shook his head to dislodge it: the sudden and steady certainty that Voldemort was there with him, that the darkness around him was ancient and cast by the Forest, that what was rushing towards him now on the whispering wind was the bright green flash of his death. As he sat there, struggling and failing to get his breathing under control, it grew so real that he truly saw it: the bone white of Voldemort's face, advancing in the gloom. Amongst the muttering of the trees, of the Death Eaters, he also discerned his name, being said again and again.

 

He shouted when someone grabbed his shoulder, and he threw back an arm to ward them off –

 

“Oi, don't hit me, it's me –”

 

“Ron,” Harry gasped, and he experienced a curious split of consciousness then: his body, sweating, thrumming with the certainty that he was about to die; his mind, latching onto the fact of Ron to restore the knowledge that it wasn't real: that he was at the Burrow, celebrating a birthday that he hadn't expected to reach, that Voldemort was dead and he was not.

 

“Harry, mate,” Ron said, dropping down beside him. “What's going on? Hey, easy, breathe.”

 

He touched Harry's shoulder again; this time Harry clutched at the hand with his own. He gulped air, but still felt like he was drowning, breathing water instead of air. Vaguely he heard Ron calling for Hermione; her fast footsteps on the grass; her talking to him, a bit panicky.

 

“I can't,” he wheezed, “I can't breathe –”

 

“Harry,” Ron said urgently, “try to breathe out, for longer – give him some room, Hermione –”

 

Harry closed his eyes; the dark there felt safer, more stable. Ron and Hermione were here now, he could feel them, dispelling that horrible certainty that he was in the Forest. He breathed, and managed, this time, to release the air steadily, to draw it back in without feeling like he was churning about in a hostile sea. For a long time, he focused on pacing himself, steadied by the light weight of Hermione's hand on one shoulder, Ron's heavier one on his other.

 

“Better?” Ron finally asked.

 

Harry opened his eyes. He was at the Burrow, looking at the quiet, benevolent shapes of the apple trees in the evening – they were nothing like the ancient trees of the Forest, with their wakeful consciousnesses. The air was fruity, not dark and woody. “I think so,” he mumbled.

 

Ron squeezed his shoulder. “All right, take your time.”

 

Harry breathed, his body still thrumming. Now that the panic was fading he was starting to feel ashamed.

 

“I don't want to stay here,” he said, quietly.

 

They didn't argue. “All right,” Ron said, straightening. “Hermione – I'll tell them I've got a really bad headache, yeah? And that Harry's got to go in Side-Along, what with the security measures, so that he's got to come along with me.”

 

“Okay,” Hermione said blankly, though she, like Harry, clearly thought it was a flimsy explanation at best. Harry heard Ron walking away towards the house. He was now calm enough to be aware of the fact that everyone at the party would know Ron was lying. His stomach was like a brick inside him.

 

He sat with Hermione in silence for a moment. “Bit better?” she finally asked.

 

“Yeah. Thanks.” The sweat on his face was drying; suddenly he felt cold in the breeze.

 

“Shall I – come along with you to the flat?”

 

There wasn't a single practical reason why she should; Harry could Side-Along with Ron, even if they were a bit shaky at it. It made more sense for Hermione to return to the party, embellish Ron's lie, and then go home to her parents once it was over. Nevertheless, he said: “Yeah. If you want.”

 

“All right, I'll come.”

 

Ron came back, and didn't say anything about what everyone had said. “Can you take him in Side-Along, Hermione?” he said. “You're better at it than I am.”

 

“Is that okay, Harry?”

 

“’Course.”

 

She helped him up, let him lean down on her shoulder a little. His legs felt shaky and unreliable.

 

“See you in a minute,” Ron said, and immediately disappeared, the loud _crack_ somehow disagreeable to Harry's ears, setting his teeth on edge.

 

“Ready?” Hermione said.

 

He adjusted his grip on her a little. “Ready.”

 

The sensation of Side-Along was always unsettling: being pulled into someone else's magical direction rather than having the movement radiate from yourself. Harry felt himself being squeezed, being made smaller, blood pressing unpleasantly behind his eyes –

 

And then he shouted in surprise, though the sound was lost in the swirling of the world – he would have lost Hermione if she wasn't holding on tight to his sleeve and kept her grip – there was a hand, a hand, its fingers hard and hot on Harry's ankle bone – and he kicked out, felt the sole of his foot connecting hard to something, and the hand was gone.

 

They fell over each other, hitting the suddenly materialised ground of the Apparition Point at too-high speed. Hermione shrieked, toppling over Harry, catching his side painfully with her knee; Harry's elbow connected hard with the stones, and he yelped.

 

“Merlin, what the hell?” he heard Ron say.

 

Hermione pushed herself off him, but didn't get up from the ground. “ _What just happened?_ ” she said loudly, staring at him with wide panicked eyes.

 

“Someone grabbed me,” Harry said blankly. He felt no fear. He was – thrumming, as if to some internal current. “Someone grabbed me, I felt their hand.”

 

“What?” Ron said, frowning.

 

“Someone,” Harry repeated. “Grabbed me on the ankle. I kicked them, they let go.” He sat up too fast, and had to endure a sudden wave of dizziness churning the alleyway.

 

“Who?”

 

“How the hell should I know?” Harry said. “But I don't think they were aiming for a friendly chat mid-Apparition.”

 

“They must have been tracking me,” Hermione was saying. “I Apparated, it was my magical signature they latched onto. They can – find me again, if they know how to –” She started to sound a bit panicked. “Ron, we have to get inside the wards, now.”

 

Ron came over to help her up. “It's all right,” he said, clasping her arm and looking hard at her. “We'll figure it out, let's just get inside as quickly as we can.” Harry took his proffered hand, and got to his feet with some effort.

 

“What,” someone said, “did we tell you about unauthorised Apparition?”

 

Disillusioning herself, the malcontented form of Belladona Tinkle took shape.

 

-

 

Part of Harry had decided to give the evening a miss and had departed, leaving him a husk, detached and unengaged. He could not summon the energy to be angry, to be scared, to be worried. This wasn't really a problem, since Hermione was doing most of the above in his name. Especially, at least, outwardly, the anger.

 

He and Ron were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking the tea that Ron had made. Tinkle, Dawlish, and Kingsley, who'd been summoned, were crowded round the table. Ron had not offered them tea.

 

“Kingsley,” Hermione said, standing up very straight, even though she barely reached to Kingsley's shoulders, “your Aurors are very quick to pin this on Harry or on me, when you can hardly deny they did their jobs badly –”

 

Tinkle protested: “The security agreements were violated when you returned home two hours early.”

 

“An on-duty officer, nowhere to be found!” Hermione exclaimed, pointing her finger at Dawlish. “Getting coffee, of all things! The other only in place after we'd already had time to discuss at leisure what happened! If you knew the level of risk, then why were Harry and Ron not accompanied to the party in the first place? Why were they not informed?”

 

Kingsley, Harry thought, looked vaguely admiring underneath his expression of utter seriousness. “Hermione,” he said.

 

“No!” she said. “I find it detestable how the blame is being shifted here, when you had two professionals in place –”

 

Ron caught Harry's eye, gave him a furtive smile and darted an affectionate glance at Hermione.

 

“You're not wrong,” Kingsley was saying, silencing the protests of his team with a glance. “Dawlish, you had no authorisation to leave the scene, and Tinkle, you left them there on their own for very vulnerable minutes, when the attacker could very easily have tracked them again.”

 

Dawlish nodded, looking chastened.

 

“We weren't informed that they'd be returning so soon,” Tinkle said, a bit stiffly, “even though informing us of a change of plan is part of the agreement.”

 

“All right, yes,” Hermione said hotly, waving a hand about, “we forgot to message ahead, that's on us! But if we'd been properly informed of the risk in the first place we wouldn't have forgotten, you can be sure of that!”

 

“Hermione, you're right, and the performance of my team will have repercussions,” Kingsley said. “I think the priority now is to find out who this person was who tracked you.”

 

Harry pushed his chair backward with a loud, scraping sound – everyone fell silent and looked at him, surprised. “I'm going to bed,” he said.

 

“We need your statement, Mr. Potter,” Tinkle said.

 

“I'll give it to you in the morning,” he said, and without waiting for anyone else to speak, he went to his bedroom and shut the door behind him, shutting out their voices, their violated protocols, their anger, their concern.

 

-

 

What seemed like hours later, Ron knocked gently on his door. There was a long moment in which Harry debated whether he felt up to talking or if he wanted to feign sleep, but – “Yeah,” he called, and then cleared his throat, surprised at how hoarse he sounded. Ron pushed open the door, standing in the rectangle of light coming in from the living room. He leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.

 

“Hey.”

 

Harry sat up a little and rubbed his eyes; they were prickly with fatigue. “Hey.”

 

“Hermione's gone on home.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

Harry could make out Ron's smile even in the semi-darkness. “She had a bit of a fit after Kingsley left. Said she couldn't believe she'd talked that way to the Minister for Magic, that she was sure to never work at the Ministry now.”

 

Harry folded his pillow into a different shape. “I'm pretty sure this just moved her up on Kingsley's list. If she wasn't already at the top.”

 

“I know, but try telling _her_ that.” A moment. “Feel better?” Ron crossed his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them again.

 

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I'm fine.”

 

“All right. Hey, Dean asked me to pass your present along.”

 

“He already gave it to me, didn't he? That whiskey you and Seamus were getting into.”

 

“No, there was another one.” Ron showed him a scroll of parchment. “Drawing, I think. I'll leave it here. Okay?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Harry watched as Ron put the parchment on his desk, and padded back to the door on his socked feet. He felt a tension inside him mellowing, felt the buzzing in his skull lessen a little. It was nice to be reminded that even after Ron closed his door he'd still be close by.

 

“Try to get some rest, yeah?” Ron said, his expression shadowed by the light streaming in around him. “If you need anything, just shout.”

 

“I won't need a-a-anything,” Harry half-said, half-yawned. “I just need sleep.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Ron said. “You never know.”

 

He closed the door so gently Harry hardly heard.

 

-

 

In the morning, Harry unrolled Dean's present, and stared down for a long time at the lovingly rendered, charcoal-drawn lines of Hogwarts, as it had been before the fight – its towers high and proud, its land safe and whole, the dark masses of the lake and the Forest quiet and serene. The technique was Muggle, every line fixed onto the paper, and yet Dean had managed to capture something of the fluidity of the castle, the way it could change and adjust to the needs of its inhabitants.

 

Harry lightly touched the smoky shape of Gryffindor tower with a fingertip, careful not to smudge it. Then he rolled the drawing back up, and carefully put it in his desk.


End file.
